


better/worse

by adamsfoster



Category: The Fosters (TV 2013)
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, First Meetings, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29755227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adamsfoster/pseuds/adamsfoster
Summary: Lena thought it was great when Stef Foster went out of her way to befriend her. Stef was a straight (unattainable) married (separated) woman with a five year old son. She was exactly the kind of friend Lena needed, and yet sometimes Stef would look at Lena with such intensity. And Lena couldn’t pretend she didn't enjoy it.
Relationships: Lena Adams Foster/Stef Adams Foster
Kudos: 2





	better/worse

When Stef told Mike she wanted a separation, her request came as a surprise to everyone but her. It was days after her twenty-ninth birthday, things were finally slowing down after a particularly busy period at work, and the words came flying out of her mouth before she had had the chance to properly think them through.

“I need space,” she had said.

And that wasn’t a lie. Nor was it a lie that she didn’t want to be doing this – and Stef told Mike as much. She didn’t want to be doing this to him and she most certainly did not want to be doing this to Brandon. Brandon, her sweet son, who was once the most unexpected thing to ever happen to her life was now the only thing in it that made any sense.

Brandon was now old enough to sense when things weren’t right with his mother and Stef could tell that he’d been sensing that something was wrong with her for quite some time. And that scared her. A lot. 

For years, Stef thought she had this whole being-a-wife-and-mother thing covered. She loved Brandon and she loved Mike. She did. Mike made her happy, he made her life easier, and Stef knew that he would do anything for his family, their family, the family they had created together.

Three weeks ago, Stef had been at the bank running an errand for her father when suddenly all the air had been sucked out of her lungs and she was rendered incapable of walking, let alone driving. She had called Mike. It was a Sunday. He and Brandon were at the park, enjoying some quality father-son bonding time. She had asked him between shallow breaths whether he could pick her up. Ten minutes later, Mike had pulled up in front of where Stef was sitting on the sidewalk with a very visibly confused Brandon in the backseat of his car.

Since that day, Brandon had not dared to leave Stef’s side. If she needed the toilet, he went with her to the restroom. If she had to nip to the grocery store, Mike was left home alone. Stef’s heart filled with joy to think that she was raising such a caring and compassionate little boy, but his sudden clinginess and concern for her wellbeing only tightened the knot that had been developing in her stomach. She had begun to feel with increasing urgency that something was desperately not right. 

Her behaviour – her erratic, irrational behaviour – was beginning to affect her son. Brandon was noticing. He could sense her discomfort and her unease in a way that Mike never could and never did. 

Stef supposed it was her own fault. She had never made a conscious effort to share her feelings with Mike and that was fine. That was just the way their relationship worked. Or how it didn’t. Maybe if Stef understood what her feelings were, maybe if she knew what they all meant, she’d be more open about them. But that was the problem. Stef didn’t know what she was feeling and for years she had been very much unwilling to find out. 

Nothing had changed per se. Stef would be lying if she said that she hadn’t noticed that Mike was drinking a lot more these days, but she at least thought knew why. Work had been a lot recently, especially for Mike. He’d been saddled with a new partner, an overeager and rather incompetent rookie, and his last couple of cases had been far from straightforward. And Mike had always liked a drink. Was drink not the reason they had their family in the first place?

Stef had been thinking about that a lot recently. If they had never gotten drunk that night, if they had never had sex in the back of Mike’s car, if Stef had never fallen pregnant – would they even be together? Would they ever have gotten married? 

Stef didn’t understand why those unanswered questions still bothered her. It had been half a decade. She had been happy – she still was happy. Wasn’t she? 

When Stef told Mike she needed space, it wasn’t a lie. She felt like she was suffocating. She was choking on his affection she couldn’t reciprocate and the unattainable expectations she was as guilty as placing on herself as Mike was. 

Separating felt like the only way forward. It wasn’t an option she had ever wanted to pursue. She didn’t want to hurt Mike and she certainly didn’t want to hurt Brandon. But Stef very quickly came to the conclusion after the incident at the bank, and after Mike had gotten so drunk at her birthday party that her own mother had had to take him home in a taxi, that something was going on within her marriage and within herself that she would not be able to identify as long as she was still with Mike. 

Stef couldn’t say that Brandon had adjusted to the separation. He was coping. They all were. But it was hard.

Mike had quickly moved out of their two-bedroom townhouse into a tiny apartment across town. Stef felt very badly about that. Mike’s new place was cold and lifeless – quite like the man himself whenever she saw him at the station. She hated the thought of him living there on his own and loathed that Brandon had to spend any time at the apartment at all. 

Mike took Brandon every weekend. Stef found herself childfree on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays for the first time since her son was born and she hated it. Stef hated being away from Brandon, but it was more than that – Stef hated that being away from Brandon meant that she was left alone with her thoughts. She still wasn’t quite ready to confront them. She was starting to think that she never would be and that all the pain she had inflicted onto the people she loved most in the world would have been for nothing.

Her parents weren’t exactly helping. They didn’t understand her decision to separate from Mike and they were unwilling to try. Sharon had asked her at least twenty times whether she was sure about what she was doing when Stef rang her to tell her the news. Frank had been quietly disappointed on the day he had been informed, but vocal and loud about his disappointment every day since. Her parents made Stef feel like a failure and a fraud, a bad mother and an even worse wife.

Come the end of spring, the last thing Stef wanted to do was pick out a school for Brandon with Mike, with all the drama that would entail – so she decided she wasn’t going to. She made the decision on her own.

Anchor Beach was a charter school in Mission Bay. It was located on the beach, kids began as kindergarteners and graduated as seniors, and it was close enough to their house that Brandon would be able to walk there as he got older. The school had a good reputation amongst parents in the local area and an impressive music programme that Brandon would be able to take full advantage of. 

Stef thought the school was perfect and she was sure that Mike would think so too. She wanted to tell him about it. She wanted to invite him along to the campus tour she had arranged – but in order for that to happen, they would have to have a conversation. And since Mike rejected Stef’s rather half-hearted plea to go to therapy with her almost a month ago, they had only managed to communicate through their colleagues, Stef’s parents, and – most shamefully of all – Brandon.

As Stef pulled up outside Anchor Beach, she reached for her handbag and extracted her mobile phone. Today was one of her rare weekdays off work. Brandon was with her father and she knew Mike was working. There’s no way that Stef could ring Mike like she was suddenly itching to do. She couldn’t just spring this on him and ask him to come along – the tour was due to start in ten minutes. 

Feeling like a terrible person, Stef rearranged her fringe in the left rearview mirror, threw her bag over her shoulder and exited her car. She slammed the door, made sure it was locked, and finally looked up to take in her surroundings.

“Let’s do this,” she mumbled under her breath.

____________________

Lena Adams had never been late to anything in her life.

Well, she’d been late plenty – she was even late to her own graduation – but at work, Lena was punctual to a fault. Until today.

Her brain had been abuzz with activity since she woke up this morning with a girlfriend. Not to a girlfriend, but to the realisation that she had agreed with T that they were more than friends. They were dating, they had been for weeks now, and last night they decided to make it official. 

Lena wasn’t sure how she felt about putting a label on their relationship so soon into their courtship. Since Gretchen, there hadn’t been anyone, not until she met T – and even then, they had yet to have sex. For months, Lena had been angry. Then she had been lonely. Until finally she began to feel afraid. 

Lena didn’t want to be alone for the rest of her life and T was such fun to be around. T was a great distraction, Lena thought. She made her forget about her break-up with Gretchen and the end of her friendship with Sam. She made her forget about her awful boss and her overbearing mother. 

T was great. She was lukewarm comfort – and now they’d put a label on it, Lena was beginning to panic. Because nobody should be anybody’s lukewarm anything. 

That panic is the reason why Lena ended up having to half-run down the corridor to meet the Foster family in the parking lot of Anchor Beach in time for their scheduled afternoon campus tour. She had been so caught up in her own head that she had failed to realise the time. 

Lena loved being Assistant Vice Principle. She even enjoyed selling the school to prospective parents – like the Fosters.

As Lena stepped out into the sunshine, she approached the young blonde woman who was sat alone on a bench in front of where the kindergarteners were playing. The woman – who Lena assumed to be Stef Foster – had her back to the children and was staring down at her hands in her lap. She seemed nervous; overly so.

Lena slowed her pace as she approached Stef. She was no longer breathless from her running, but because there was a beautiful woman sat in front of her. Stef had straight hair cut just past her shoulders that caught the sun as tilted her head. Her eyes widened as she noticed Lena’s presence. Lena smiled sweetly, admiring the way Stef was dressed in a tight button-up shirt and cargo jeans. Stef adjusted the handbag that was thrown over her shoulder as she stood. She looked effortless and emotionless and she could feel her heartbeat in her ears. 

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” 

Stef was speechless.

“Hi, I’m Lena Adams – the Assistant Vice Principle.”

The angel stood in front of her extended her hand. Stef grasped it firmly. Her mouth was suddenly very dry. “Hi, I’m Stef Foster. It’s...”

Stef forgot herself. She forgot who she was and where she was and what she was doing. She stared at Ms – Mrs? – Adams helplessly. Lena picked up on Stef’s inability to speak.

Slowly, she released Stef’s hand. Their handshake had extended for just a beat too long.

“So, your son... Brandon.”

“Brandon,” Stef repeated, her senses returning. “Brandon. Right.”

“He will be starting kindergarten this fall?” 

“Yes, he’s five.” 

Lena nodded softly. 

“Great. Well, I would be glad to give you a tour, tell you about our school.” She almost didn’t want to know, but... “Are we waiting for your husband to join?”

Lena hated being presumptuous. Stef could be a single mother. Or a widow. Or her son might not have a father at all. But the campus tour had been arranged for a Mr and Mrs Foster. Lena didn’t want to seem rude and press ahead without Stef’s husband. 

“Uh, no,” Stef replied. Her stomach lurched. She remembered how much of a terrible person she was. “He’s not... He... He couldn’t make it.”

That wasn’t entirely the truth.


End file.
